Comic Book Day: BATMAN BEYOND UNIVERSE’s Christos Gage & Kyle Higgins

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For many fans out there, the most perfect version of the Dark Knight, and even the most perfect version of the entire DC Universe in fact, is the animated version created by Bruce Timm and Paul Dini. Now that universe continues on, in the pages of Batman Beyond Universe, a new ongoing series from DC that follows the adventures of Terry McGinnis in Batman Beyond and Justice League Beyond. To take you deeper inside the future of the DCU as we know it, I caught up with writers Christos Gage (Justice League Beyond) and Kyle Higgins (Batman Beyond) to talk about their digital-first series.

Nerdist: So Batman Beyond Universe is kind of a unique book for DC; It’s two books essentially combined into one, with two different writers, correct?

Christos Gage: Kyle [Higgins] is doing Batman Beyond, and I’m doing Justice League Beyond, and they are digital first releases, so what we have is that on one Saturday we’ll have a chapter of Batman Beyond, then the following Saturday there will be a chapter of Justice League Beyond, and then several installments of both series will be collected in Batman Beyond Universe, which is a 40 page printed comic for $3.99. So it’s been pretty cool, working in the whole “Beyond” universe, which I was pretty new to. Right now, Kyle and I are the only ones really working in this universe, so you can do whatever you want in it.

N: So the Batman Beyond universe is essentially the Bruce Timm DC Animated Universe then right? The one started in Batman: The Animated Series, Superman, Batman Beyond and JLU? Had you been a fan of the Timm-verse before doing this book?

CG: I was a fan of what I had seen of it, I just hadn’t seen all that much of it, because when it originally aired I was in college and graduate school, just was busy with other things. I had seen a number of episodes of Batman Beyond, but Justice League and Justice League Unlimited episodes, which are the foundations of the whole Beyond future; Those were new to me, so I’m having the pleasure of discovering that for the first time which is cool.

N: When Batman Beyond first hit the air, there was a lot of resistance to the idea of anyone but Bruce Wayne being Batman… do you feel like that’s less now, and that Terry McGinnis is really accepted as Batman?

CG: It’s just like anything, people feel like, “Well, Bruce is Batman. Period.” But Bruce didn’t go away, he’s still a big part of the story. Secondly, people have come to love the character of Terry, because at the end end of the day, there are no bad ideas, just bad stories. If you can make it work though… I mean, if you came to me before Ed Brubaker took over Captain America and said he was going to bring back Bucky, I would have said, “that’s going to suck. I don’t care who’s doing it.” But he did a great job, and it’s brilliant.

Kyle Higgins: When the show came out, and I think this is the reason people have warmed to it, is because from the ground running, Terry McGinnis was very relatable; he was hot-headed and he had a temper, and as he took on the Batman suit, he was trying to get out of Bruce’s shadow. It’s the same reason why people like Nightwing and respond to that character. And the show is kind of Mask of Zorro, but with Bruce Wayne and Terry instead of Anthony Hopkins and Antonio Banderas.

N: There’s been rumors lately of a Batman Beyond live action movie. How do you guys feel about that?

KH: Well, that they should hire me to write it! And I could co-write it with Chris.

N: I’d watch a Batman Beyond movie written by you guys any old day, believe me.

What do you think of Batman Beyond Universe so far? Let us know in the comments below!

Comments

I love Batman Beyond, but eventually the writers are going to have to bite the bullet and kill off Bruce. And I will love it all the more when that happens. Terry needs to learn how to fly solo.

Maybe have Bruce’s funeral as the opening scene of a BB movie, the outraged publicity will bring in a few extra thousand tickets on opening weekend alone, never mind the real marketing. Just, FFS, don’t make the movie an origin story. So sick of those.